Learn the Language or Accept your Status as a Slave

29Dec

Black’s law Dictionary, (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A friend of mine sent me an email based on recent reports that “On Friday, the Senate passed the FISA Amendments Act which gives the government the ability to electronically monitor the phone calls, e-mails and other communications of Americans without a probable cause warrant as long as they can claim that one of the parties to the communication is believed to be outside of the U.S.”

The average American is unconcerned that the FISA Act authorizes the federal government to make warrantless wiretaps of phone calls made from the “U.S.” to Iraq, Iran or Afghanistan. The vast majority of Americans will never make a call to a foreign country “outside of the U.S.,” so the vast majority don’t care if the government can wire tap calls to foreign countries without a warrant. But the average American’s indifference to these warrantless wiretaps is based on the assumption that the phrase “outside the U.S.” necessarily applies only to calls made to foreign countries.

My friend, however, asked, “I wonder if ‘outside the U.S.‘ means to the government what it does to us?”

Like me, my friend subscribes to the hypothesis that “The State” (say, “The State of Texas”) is intended to signify a State of the Union while “this state” (say, “TX” or “STATE OF TEXAS”) is intended to signify a territory. If you can establish that you are within The State of Texas, you’ll have many more rights and far more liberty than if you allow yourself to be presumed to be “in this state”.

Similarly, the phrase “outside the U.S.” could have multiple meanings and multiple jurisdictional authorities depending and whether the government intended “U.S.” to signify:

1) the “several United States” (as seen in Article 1 section 2 clause 3 of The Constitution of the United States);

2) the singular “United States” found in Section 1 of the 14th Amendment; or,

3) some entirely different “plane” or venue.

These distinctions are confusing but also potentially important since a law that might be 100% constitutional and authoritative within the singular “U.S.” might simultaneously be completely unconstitutional within the the plane/venue of the several “United States”.

Therefore, the question of whether the FISA wiretapping laws apply or do not apply to you may depend on whichever “U.S.” the government means when they say “outside the U.S.” in the recent FISA Amendment Act.

If government meant the “several United States” and you–or any party to your phone call is deemed to be within the singular “U.S.,” then your party would be “outside of the U.S.” and the government may be empowered to wiretap and record your call.

Alternatively, if the government meant the singular “United States” when they wrote “outside the U.S.,” and you or any party to your phone call is in the several “United States”–again–government may be able to lawfully and constitutionally tap your telephone conversations.

To paraphrase our former President Bill Clinton, “It all depends on what the meaning of ‘U.S.’ is.”

My friend’s question started me off on another ramble about definitions of words and legal terms. But, as is often the case, I start these “rambles” intending to merely repeat knowledge I’ve previously conveyed but I wind up making new statements of knowledge I hadn’t previously perceived.

My response follows:

• The whole system appears to operate as a bizarre “word game” based on multiple definitions of the same word or term. As I write this email, it occurs to me that the government uses a particular word/term to mean one thing when they know that the people assume it to mean something else.

For example, the government might expressly promise that they will only make warrantless wiretaps on calls to “outside the U.S.” knowing that the average American will mistakenly presume the promise only applies to calls made to foreign countries–when the government meant something entirely different

The problem starts with the Congress being able to define terms in every law on a law-by-law basis. The meaning of the word “state” in one law can be something else in another law and something else, again, in a third law.

Because Congress can create multiple definitions for the same word, it’s virtually certain that the people–who normally presume a word has but one legal definition and that definition is more or less consistent with the people’s “felt” definition–are as confused by today’s “legalese” (a language of conflicting definitions) as they once were by Catholic church ceremonies conducted only in Latin.

Unable to overcome the confusion of multiple definitions, the people are uncomprehending, fearful of their own ignorance, and thereby forced to hire their own attorney as an “interpreter” of the “legalese”.

It occurs to me that there should be words whose meanings are fixed and “universal” throughout a particular legal system. For example the words, “State,” “state,” “unalienable,” “man,” “person,” etc. should each have a fundamental meaning that you can rely on every time you see them in any law passed by the Congress.

The idea of “universally” fixed definitions might seem impossible from today’s perspective, but it’s not. The great advantage of having a legal system based on Latin was the fixed definitions of the words.. Being a “dead language,” the meanings of words written in Latin weren’t subject to legislative decree and did not evolve or change–even over centuries. The meaning of contract written in today would have exactly that same meaning found in an identical contract signed by Julius Caesar in 50 B.C.

It might be hard to become proficient in a “dead language” like Latin, but once you acquired that proficiency, you could read the law of 100 years ago, 500 years ago, 2,000 years ago without having to pay any significant attention to the date of the law. The words would have the same meanings as were understood by Caesar.

Today, if you want to know what a law means, you must first calculate when the law was enacted. If it was enacted prior to A.D. 1933 it might have one meaning, while it could have significantly different meanings if it was enacted prior to A.D. 1948, prior to A.D. 1968, prior to A.D. 1971 or after A.D. 1971. Identical words and seemingly identical laws could have significantly different and even contradictory meanings depending on the time of their enactment.

• It also occurs to me that including a list of providing unique definitions of terms is commonplace in private contracts. I might sign a contract with you where we agreed to the meanings of several words. I might sign another, similar contract with someone else where we agreed to define the very same words but with different meanings. Thus, changing and evolving definitions would be acceptable in private law because those changes only applied to the two (or more) parties to the contract.

But I wonder if changing definitions in the public law might not be prohibited. Every time Congress redefines a term for a specific law, they are essentially changing our language. I’m not talking about Congress adding and defining new words that might not have existed even five years ago. I’m talking about taking the meaning of a word that’s been established by history and changing it.

When Congress changes the meanings of words by law, Congress changes our culture. When Congress introduces a multiplicity of definitions for the same word, Congress creates the modern equivalent of a “Tower of Babel” where each of us is speaking a unique language and is unable to understand the language of others or be understood by others.

Does Congress have the power to change our language? Does Congress have the power to change our culture? Does Congress have the power to redefine words so as to confuse the language and divide the culture just as God divided the workmen on the Tower by giving them different languages? Maybe. But it shouldn’t.

So, I’m wondering–if giving words unique definitions in private contracts is OK, is it possible that a similar propensity to provide unique definitions of words in “laws” is evidence that those laws are “private laws” rather than “public laws”? I doubt that’s true. Even if it is true, I doubt that I could prove at this time. But I wonder . . . .

• I recognize that the meanings of words usually evolve and change “naturally”–by the custom of the people. The word’s “cool” and “gay” had one meaning when I was a child but have come to assume significantly different meanings today. Congress didn’t cause those changes; the people did.

Still, should the Congress be empowered to impose new definitions by law that only confuse the people?

Congress would almost certainly argue that when they define the meaning of word for a particular law, they do so in order to enhance the law’s specificity and clarity. That might be true relative to a particular law, but it is not true relative to the body politic? As the multiplicity of legal definitions grows, communication–and resulting agreement–is not enhanced but is, instead, diminished.

The people should have confidence that the word “United States” means the same thing today as it did when the Constitution of the United States was adopted. The people should have confidence that the terms “direct Taxes” and “States” (as seen in Article 1.2.3 of the Constitution of the United States) have the same meanings today as they had when the Constitution was ratified.

The people should have confidence that the laws are written in a language they can comprehend with definitions that are ultimately decided by the sovereigns (the people) rather than the servants (the Congress).

• Much of what I’m advocating is at least unlikely and perhaps impossible. Still, it seems to me that there should not be several different definitions for a fundamental term like “State” for each section in the United States Code. At most, there might be list of unique definitions for each Title of the USC (even that would allow for 50 different definitions for a particular world within the entire USC). There shouldn’t be a multiplicity of definitions for all the sections within each of the 50 Titles. More, there should 20, 50, perhaps 100, fundamental words that are commonly used in law and are therefore expressly defined at Title 1 of the USC and declared to apply in every instance where they’re used through the entire 50 (?) Titles of the USC.

If we’re correct in thinking that the government has supplanted our States of the Union with territories defined as “this state,” or “STATE” or some such, then the whole system would collapse if we could simply cause Congress and the courts to admit that the exact, capitialized word “State” and only “State” was defined to mean States of the union–and that any other word that defined a political subdivision that was not a State of the Union had to avoid using the word “State” and be expressly defined as something other than a State of the Union.

• I’ve previously written that “definitions are the law of the law“. In other words, the meaning of a law enacted by Congress depends on the definitions of the words used to express that law. But, today, I’m seeing even more truth in that statement than I have in the past.

What’s the ultimate meaning of any law? Sometimes, a word or phrase in a law is clearly ambiguous in meaning. A strict reading of the word or phrase will show that it might mean “A” or it might mean “B”. Even though the two definitions (“A” and “B”) are contradictory, both definitions can be reasonably inferred from the context of the particular law.

Therefore, the courts are sometimes called upon to decide whether a particular word or phrase in an enacted law means “A” or “B”. How does the court ultimately determine what the ambiguous word or phrase means? They read the Congressional Record, the journals of the committees that first hashed out the proposed law. The meaning of the words in a law is ultimately decided by the discovering the intent of the Congress when they drafted and enacted the law. The courts have ruled that the meaning of any law is not necessary what the law says in a strict reading of the words, but rather what the Congress intended to law to mean when they wrote those words. If Congress made a mistake in the language of the law, the laws means what Congress intended, not what Congress expressly wrote.

But we know that Congress routinely refuses to even read the laws that they vote to enact. Not one Congressman read the Patriot Act before they voted for it. How many read ObamaCare before they voted for it? (I doubt that Barack Obama has read ObamaCare to this day.) I guarantee that no more than 10% (and probably 1% or less) of the Congress read ObamaCare before the majority of the Congress voted to enact it.

So, what’s the “congressional intent” behind a law that Congress have never read? How can a meaning be “intended” for a law that Congress have never read? How can there be “congressional intent” if the Congress hasn’t even read (let alone understood) the laws they enact? How can the definitions in laws that Congress hasn’t even read have any legal force if there was no “congressional intent“?

• We’re told that “ignorance of the law is no excuse”. But when we’re faced with a multitude of definitions, it becomes virtually impossible for anyone to understand the law.

We routinely have 5-4 decisions on the Supreme Court. 5 Justices say the law means “A”; the other 4 Justices say, No, it means “B”. The majority prevails. But if the 9 Supreme Court justices can’t even agree on what the law means, it implies that even the Supreme Court justices don’t all “know” what the law means, and that implies that even the Supreme Court justices are routinely “ignorant of the law”. If the Supreme Court’s ignorance of the law is tolerated, why must the average American’s ignorance be rejected as “inexcusable”?

• I’m increasingly convinced that one of the most powerful lines of defense against government prosecution is to simply inquire about the definitions of their most important terms. I believe this may be especially true early on, when they send their first Notice. I respond with questions. I include questions concerning the meanings of fundamental terms that appear in their Notice. I might look in Black’s Law Dictionary for any term in the Notice that’s of interest. Black’s will probably offer two or more definitions of that term. Black’s may thereby establish that the term is ambiguous since it it is recognized as having several definitions. That “official” recognition makes my questions about the meaning of the particular word or term “reasonable”. I’ll ask if the authors of the Notice used the particular word with the meaning specified in definition 1, 2, or 3 found in Black’s or perhaps some other definition not found in Black’s.

After all, doesn’t the 6th Amendment mandate that “In all criminal prosecutions [by the federal government], the accused shall enjoy the right . . . to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation”? How can the government inform me of the “nature and cause” of the accusation against me without the use of words? How can I understand the meanings of the words intended to inform me of the “nature and cause of the accusation” unless I know the definitions of those words?

Of course, the government could defeat my demand for definitions under the 6th Amendment under the pretext that the 6th only applies to criminal prosecutions–and this is not a criminal case. That’s fine with me. As soon as they admit the case is not of a criminal nature, I’m going to file a counter-claim since the case must be of a civil nature.

They might claim their suit is penal rather than criminal or civil. But, my understanding of “penal” is that it’s a civil suit with attached criminal penalties. Penal is civil in nature.

I strongly suspect that once I start making inquiries about their definitions, their interest in prosecuting me may diminish or even disappear.

Once they admit that we’re in a civil proceeding, I believe that I can rely on “procedural due process” to encourage the gov-co to answer my questions. Procedural due process consists of 1) Notice; and 2) Opportunity to be heard. As I’ve speculated in some of my articles on Notice, I don’t think any Notice is complete until the recipient agrees that it’s sufficient to apprise him of all the relevant facts and law of the case. If so, the right to procedural due process opens the door to asking questions–including questions about the definitions of the terms used in the Notice.

• The whole system appears to function as a giant, almost incomprehensible word game. From government’s perspective, the game depends on your ignorance concerning words, definitions and grammar. But once you begin to comprehend the words and their definitions, the game ends. If you can overcome your ignorance, government will have a very hard time in prosecuting an accused. That doesn’t mean that no prosecution will take place. It doesn’t mean that no prosecution could possibly succeed, But it does mean that any prosecution will be less probable.

The government’s “word game” is based on deception, fraud, breach of fiduciary obligations, and treason. This “word game” absolutely depends on the sophisticated use of language.

This game is wicked but it’s not new. 2,000 years ago, the Christ warned “Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers.” Luke 11:46

How do you suppose the lawyers of the Christ’s time were able to “lade men with burdens grievous to be born”? With guns, clubs, knives and whips? Or with the sophisticated use of words and language? Men were trapped and enslaved with mere words 20 centuries ago. Men are trapped and enslaved with mere words today.

The process is undoubtedly wicked.

Still, there’s one good thing about this “word game”. It can be stopped with a diligent pursuit of knowledge about words, definitions and grammar. Guns and bombs may not be required to win–only books and dictionaries.

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19 responses to “Learn the Language or Accept your Status as a Slave”

Lance

December 30, 2012 at 12:21 AM

Great blog! I agree after two years of study into this very topic. Law is a language. It’s very much a word game, spell-ing, is it not? Word spells perhaps. Black and white magic. Judges are priests no? Jordan Maxwell, Winston Shrout, Eustace Mullins and Gordon Hall elaborate more on this topic. Latin is the language of the dead. The cleric summons up the dead strawman to the corpse. The corporation, in a court summons for example. Dead entities. The state is a dead entity. People worship dead entities. People think they are dead entities, the NAME, the straw man, ens legis. It’s the inquisition continued, with debt/crime/sin being monetized, no?

Alfed, I always enjoy you articles. You have a very sharp, keen,logical, thought provoking mind.

Regarding the meaning of words and this quote from the article above: ” “Woe unto you also, ye lawyers”
Could the word “Woe” also have a more “colloquial” meaning or be substituted by common word often used “street language” and bring greater depth and meaning to Christ’s expressions, bring clearer his concepts? What say ye?

I’m not quite sure what “street language” you’re talking about, but I think I can guess. Such “street language” might be appropriate for me to use, but I doubt that it would be appropriate for the Christ’s image.

I believe this phrase is attributed to bible translator John Wycliffe. I believe Wycliffe’s translation was largely responsible for the King James version of the scriptures. I think the people trying to prop up and protect their carefully crafted “image of Christ”, led to the banning and burning of both bibles and people. One example that comes readily to mind is that of Mr. Ridley and Mr. Latimer at Cambridge England .Perhaps instead of Street Language I should have said the language of the “Plowboy”.
Here is Wycliffe’s words: ” to “cause the boy that drives the plough to know more of the Scriptures than the Pope himself”

And here is Christ words in “street language” I think they “fit pretty good”!

WHAT EXACTLY WAS IT THAT HE SAID?
To understand what is said, it is necessary to get down to the meaning of the words that are used.
The words of the New Testament are, English which was most likely translated from Latin,
which was likely translated from Greek
which was likely translated from Aramaic.
So, what did Christ actually say when he said, “woe unto you”?
Is it too big a stretch to accept it could equate with “damn you”?

Jesus was cussing! Oh! It’s just too much an’t it?
Well now Let’s just see how well “damn you” fits
A correct translation of Matthew 23 from the original Aramaic, in context …
23. Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, “The scholars and Pharisees occupy the chair of Moses. This means you’re supposed to observe and follow everything they tell you. But don’t do what they do; after all, they’re all talk and no action. They invent heavy burdens and lay them on folks’ shoulders, but they themselves won’t lift a finger to move them. Everything they do, they do for show. So they widen their phylacteries and enlarge their tassels. They love the best couches at banquets and prominent seats in synagogues and respectful greetings in marketplaces, and they like to be called ‘Rabbi’ by everyone. But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi’; after all, you only have one teacher, and all of you belong to the same family. And don’t call anyone on earth ‘father,’ since you have only one Father, and he is in heaven. You are not to be called ‘instructors,’ because you have only one instructor, the Anointed. Now whoever is greater than you will be your slave. Those who promote themselves will be demoted and those who demote themselves will be promoted.
“You scholars and Pharisees, you impostors! Damn you! You slam the door of Heaven’s domain in people’s faces. You yourselves don’t enter, and you block the way of those trying to enter.
“You scholars and Pharisees, you impostors! Damn you! You scour land and sea to make one convert, and when you do, you make that person more of a child of Hell than you are.
“Damn you, you blind guides who claim: ‘When you swear by the temple, it doesn’t matter, but when you swear by the treasure in the temple, it is binding.’ You blind fools, which is greater, the treasure or the temple that makes the gold sacred? You go on: ‘When you swear by the altar, it doesn’t matter, but when you swear by the offering that lies on the altar, it is binding.’ You sightless souls, which is greater, the offering or the altar that makes the offering sacred? So when you swear by the altar, you swear by the altar and everything on it. And anyone who swears by the temple, swears by the temple and the one who makes it home, and anyone who swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and the one who occupies it.
“You scholars and Pharisees, you impostors! Damn you! You pay tithes on mint and dill and cumin too, but ignore the really important matters of the Law, such as justice and mercy and trust. You should have attended to the last, without ignoring the first. You blind leaders! You strain out a gnat and gulp down a camel.
“You scholars and Pharisees, you impostors! Damn you! You wash the outside of cups and plates, but inside they are full of greed and dissipation. You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and then the outside will be clean too.
“You scholars and Pharisees, you impostors! Damn you! You are like whitewashed tombs: on the outside they look beautiful, but inside they are full of dead bones and every kind of decay. So you too look like decent people on the outside, but on the inside you are doing nothing but posturing and subverting the Law.
“You scholars and Pharisees, you impostors! Damn you! You erect tombs to the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous and claim: ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we wouldn’t have joined them in spilling the prophets’ blood. So, you witness against yourselves: You are descendants of those who murdered the prophets, and you’re the spitting image of your ancestors. You serpents! You spawn of Satan! How are you going to escape Hell’s judgment? Look, that is why I send you prophets and sages and scholars. Some you’re going to kill and crucify, and some you’re going to beat in your synagogues and hound from city to city. As a result there will be on your heads all the innocent blood that has been shed on the earth, from the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Baruch, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. I swear to you, all these things are going to rain down on this generation.

Anon4fun

December 30, 2012 at 3:58 AM

“If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.” – Winston Churchill

Though it’s getting late, we are still in the first stage of Churchill’s fatal progression. That is, We the People can still turn this thing around with words, taking a cue from the Adask School of legal theory, for example. Note that I am not saying you personally, a reader of this message, can do it alone. Such victories are won through intelligent cooperation. The tide of history has turned, and time is now against the NWO. Their last best hope is that We the People can be made to voluntarily DISENGAGE from the fight: stop voting, accept the proposition that the best thing to do is nothing at all, etc., and thereby snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. The NWO and its propaganda weenies hope to Hollywoodize and in other ways flimflam We the People into retreating to our private anarchist fantasylands. According to their scheme, our taking this bait allows the American body politic to continue its decline to the point where, individually lacking the strategic depth that political resistance to tyranny affords, we each find ourselves backed into a corner with nothing left but a final stand, “because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.”

The prefix “in” most commonly causes a word to reverse its meaning, eligible becomes ineligible, correct becomes incorrect, flexible becomes inflexible, does come become income? How can “income” be anything but an entirely contrived word? Come is a verb, how can a verb be prefixed and become a noun(a thing)? Worse it is the opposite of whatever the noun “come” might be.

INCOME: receipt, getting, have coming in to you, in-coming. 100 years ago Income meant Gain, Profit, Return …..and it probably still actually means Profit. But not one CPA in a hundred will tell you this truth. Nevertheless, the private IRS boldly persists in its deception, enforcing the Taxing Plank of the Communist Manifesto upon U.S. employees/slaves/citizens (the dead).

MORTGAGE: MORT: as in mortuary, morgue, mortification. DEAD
GAGE: as in measured or measurement

Babylon is the dwelling place of deception, death, and devils. Babylon requires compromise and intimate interaction. If you would save yourself from the coming plagues, torment, famine, mourning, and sorrows, you must come out of Babylon. It’s your choice. (Rev. 18)
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Peg-Power

Al, I think the main intention in the erosion of precision in the legislative language is to bring the country to the Soviet style condition… where the law means whatever the prosecutor wants it to in the subjective situation. That puts the common man in a state of perpetual fear and insecurity, and the govco in a the position of absolute arbitrary power. We already see much of this with IRS, FDA, OSHA and other agencies enforcement actions. Soon it will be across the board, covering every arena of life… the first victims will likely be political opponents of the system.

It’s obvious that Congress intentionally will not write clear laws. This hands the “legislation” function to the Courts, and obvious perversion of the Constitution.

We also have the relatively new phenomenon of “provided” legislation, served up ready to go and unread at passing. You would wonder who exactly is providing these bills? (Patriot act; Obamacare, etc. literally over one thousand pages of text in length…)

When Obama appoints one more marxist/lesbian justice, swapping the 5/4 vote pattern, then the descent will accelerate rapidly. 2nd amendment will be gone de facto; 1st will follow rapidly… and it will be the end of what little is left of the Republic.

It seems funny when you read people debating over something they can’t change, Governments makes and changes laws without your consent, Government wait to see if people protest or not or how many protest against it. It seems not enough does anyway and if a enough do you just interrupt it with seeded violence to debunk it. You the people lose, they know you will just except it in the end, and all does is place you on the hit list to be dealt with in time. The people are just sheep, so just keep on bleating, and see how far you can get with that.

The point is they have a plan and they will succeed, why stand in there way and make trouble for your self unless you want to be a martyr then that’s ok.

So what would like on your tomb stone to read?

She or he stood-up and was put down. RIP.

Its to late people, and that’s the point of the matter.

We have been educated enough to see the end of America and what the reasons are for the down fall of America, the truth is there is no love for America among the nations of the world, for the crimes of the US military has taken against other nations, and how it was engineered to happen. US usefulness is coming to an end, but of course the American people can’t see this. You need to see it from outside the us among the other nations and you will see the point and where America is headed.

America is about to flushed down the toilet. The Great Nation to almost no nation, left with rebellion at the door of your Government. With a Muslim at the helm. With US forces protecting the poppy fields in Afghanistan for shipment back to supply the drug trade into America and the rest of the world. Come on who fooling who here. Your living in a fantasy world now crumbling around you, and your worried about a law on your privacy that you lost long time ago. Its over, your over, and the world is over the BS that America has forced upon all other nations. No one gives a crap anymore.

Its not going to slow them the ones in power or make a difference, because the dumb sheep are to many against the smart sheep like you, you have not the power nor the weapons they use over you. Power use to work in the past, but it does not any more with this new generation of yuppies, with quick fingers on their IPhone and twits twittering away. The Apple a symbol of evil, and a salute to a force called Satan. You don’t have to believe in it, you just have to own one.

So how many of you own an apple device?

Laws are made to the advantage of twisting for the few who can afford justice, and the control of the many for revenue taking when broken and other Government advantages against the people when required.

The fiscal cliff? Well shucks their put a bandage on it folks and deferred it for two more months to decided whether to sink the ship or keep it afloat, well tell the hill billies to put up yer guns for another two months, and stock up on some more ammo.

So much for “plain language”. Or is it “plane” language?
“Words and phrases shall be construed according to the common and approved use of the language. Technical words and phrases and those which have acquired a peculiar and appropriate meaning in the law shall be construed according to such peculiar and appropriate meaning.”
Arizona Revised Statutes 1-213

Then again…
” Permit me, Sir, to add another circumstance in our colonies, which contributes no mean part towards the growth and effect of this untractable spirit. I mean their education. In no country perhaps in the world is the law so general a study. The profession itself is numerous and powerful; and in most provinces it takes the lead. The greater number of the deputies sent to the congress were lawyers. But all who read, and most do read, endeavour to obtain some smattering in that science. I have been told by an eminent bookseller, that in no branch of his business, after tracts of popular devotion, were so many books as those on the law exported to the plantations. The colonists have now fallen into the way of printing them for their own use.” Edmund Burke 1774

Reminds me of reading Ben Franklins’ biography, where he admitted wordsmithing a requisition for arms and powder by making it look like a requisition for something else, or else congress would never have approved! Nothing has changed, it’s a matter of awareness and or perception/presumption or assumption that will either bring truth into focus or keep the blurred perception and never see the truth!

Title 26 is filled to the brim with such custom definitions. “Income” for example is not defined at all, yet it is the subject of that Title. The word “includes” which most of us suppose is expansively defined, actually EXCLUDES ALL items not listed in the definition specifically. “Fruit”, for example (to use Pete’s example) my be defined as “Apples, Blueberries and Grapes”. ALL other items we would normally consider “Fruit” would be excluded, as they are not listed. Consider this when looking at words in the Tax code.. Or in any other State or Federal Law for that matter. Statutes typically have specific sections that list the definitions of specific words as used in that Statute.

We must be entitled to know and/or agree to the definition of each word used in our communications. If you and I are talking and you use a word like “ugga-bugga” and refuse to define that word, then I am entitled to define it by expressing whatever meaning I attach to the word. If you want to argue that my definition is mistaken, you’ll either have to 1) admit the word is undefined (in which case we can’t have a comprehensible communication) or 2) provide your own definition. The same principle should apply when dealing with the IRS.

If so, why complain that Title 26 does not define “income”? That’s not necessarily a problem. It might be an opportunity.

If the IRC and/or IRS won’t define “income,” why not provide your own definition for “income” in your paperwork? I don’t mean that you should personally define “income” (although you could) in your own words. It would be better to pick a definition out of the several different definitions for “income” that are available in various dictionaries, state statutes, or court cases. If you could find a “recognized” definition for “income” that suits your purposes and defeats the IRS’s purposes, by incorporating your own sworn definition of “income” in an affidavit or other sworn testimony that was admitted into evidence, you might be able to force to the IRS to either 1) accept your definition; or 2) deny your definition by providing its own definition.

If the IRS accepts your definition, you should win. If the IRS denies your definition, it will have created a controversy that should be answered by a court. If the IRS provides their own, express definition for “income,” a careful analysis of the IRS’s definition may render that definition false or ineffective.